I took a trip to the Forest of Dean yesterday. I didn't do any research on where would be best but simply used my own judgement from the map. Within 15 minutes of home I had my first interesting sighting when a hare ran out into the road. She had clearly been to the pheasant school of road safety as she stopped and then turned round and went back the way that she had come. It was my first hare for quite a few years and the first in Bucks. I parked at Cannop Ponds, at first it just looked like the typical collection of mallard, tufty and coot but then I spotted some mandarin ducks. I hadn't been aware of the colony in the area until looking it up afterwards. As well as on the lake I explored the marshy ground below the dam and spotted another pair. Walking south along the old railway it did rather feel as if I had wandered into Center Parcs as it all seemed so manacured. I only had a couple of hints that I was on a railway track at all. This solit...
Once upon a time you could find me birding on the Thames marshes almost every weekend through the winter. For various reasons I am now seldom able to travel to good birding sites. I am lucky, however, to live in the beautiful Chiltern Hills and this blog is to document the birds that I see on my own patch.